She's becoming a little girl!

J and I decided that we were not going to turn Jana in to a girly-girl just because she is a female (and, well, I'm not very girl), so we have been careful to not influence her in any way. I know she's only 18 months, but we have really tried to wait for clues from her instead of pushing her in any directions. We have bought all the neutral toys (stuffed animals, little people, blocks, etc), but have watched for her interests before buying anything else. She loves to build and was having a wonderful time stacking up my tupper wares, so we then got her blocks to build with. After spending time with my nephew, she's very interested in cars and trucks, so she got some.

We discovered the other day that she was copying me as I was making her lunch and trying to get into the kitchen cabinets all the time, so I searched craigslist and got her a kitchen for super cheap. She loves it!

Also she will only let us read her the baby signs books and will doing some of the signs, but mostly just point at the babies and exclaim with great glee "Babies!" It isn't surprising since she's around Kara all the time, but she is obsessed with babies.... So now, she owns her own doll. It's just one of those babies that has beanie bodies and soft plastic heads, arms, and legs. (She picked it out because of the pacifier, I'm sure). She carries it around with her all the time now. She gives it kisses, hugs it, and burps it. It's absolutely adorable!

J keeps joking that the first time she drags him to a "tea party" he's coming after me for making her girly (we both know he'll love every minute of it though!). Part of what makes it so interesting to me in that we truly did not influence her in that direction - in fact, I'm not sure she has even seen a doll before, let alone play with one.

I'm amazed by her development each day. She has now started saying "hep pees" (help please) when she needs help. She came out with "more please" today at her snack when she wanted more strawberries. She loves to screw on and off the lids to water bottles.

I know every parent is the same, but I am amazed at how infatuated I am with Jana and her sweet little personality. She's such a little person now, it's amazing. She's so sweet and loving. She's so determined and persistent, which can be wonderful, but also lead to many tantrums, too. She wants to be independent, but will come back for a hug every now and then. She's just this wonderful mix of traits. Oh, I just love her to pieces.

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I remember having all this time with Jana where I would sit around and stare at her in awe. I use to study her face. I use to plan her day so that she slept at the same times, ate at the same times. I always worried about how to get her "back on schedule" if she woke up late. I use to let her sleep on me.

Poor Kara gets none of that!

Kara gets fed whenever I can in the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hour window from the last feeding. She often falls asleep in her swing or in her gym before I realize she's sleepy. I get to cuddle her and let her fall asleep on me in the mornings if she wakes up before Jana. But other than that, there's no way to give her that same attention.

I feel horribly guilty for both of the girls, but I think guilt is second nature to a mother. I feel guilty for not giving Kara the focused time that I did with Jana. I feel guilty for not giving Jana the focused time I used to. Ugh! There's no winning.

Kara just went through a rough growth spurt. Two nights ago, this is how her night went.

8:30 bed
10:30 awake
12:30 awake
1:30 awake
3:30 awake
5:00 awake

I honestly can't tell you if I fed her at every waking time or not, but I did need to go in there and at least re-cork her (give her a binky). Jana never had these awful nights during her growth spurts. I remember her waking a little, but not like this. I think she had a little more to live off of than poor Kara.

Kara has just a delightful personality. She smiles so much and coos at us all the time.

I noticed something today that made me laugh. Keep in mind that I'm a very short-waisted person, but as I was burping Kara after a feeding, I noticed that she was standing on my legs and had her head above my shoulder. I don't ever remember Jana being tall enough to do that when I still needed to burp her... and Kara's only 3 months old.

Well, I started this post about 8 hours ago, and now I don't remember what I else I was going to say.